Bill Gross featured on NPR's Marketplace

Our CEO, Bill Gross, was interviewed on last night’s Marketplace show, on NPR. That means Kai Ryssdal was actually here in our office. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out about the interview until the night before it aired, when the teaser came out on Wednesday’s Marketplace show, so I found out after the fact that Kai came by two Mondays ago.

Here in the LA area, celebrity sightings are not exactly uncommon, but we still get weirded out by seeing famous faces. Geeky as it may be, I think I’d much have rather met Kai than, say, Lindsey Lohan or Kobe Bryant. Well, Bill invited Kai back in 5 to 10 years so maybe I’ll get my chance then.

Ryssdal: You are a serial entrepreneur. The company you founded is called Idealab. What's the best idea you ever had?

Gross: Well, I think that the pay per click idea was probably the best idea we ever had . . . based on its success. I'd like to think that we'll be remembered for some of the stuff that we do on solar energy. We just need some more time. So hopefully, if we have this interview again in 5 or 10 years, that will be the best idea we ever had.

Ryssdal: We'll call you and we can figure it out.

Gross: That would be great.

Considering my companies are in the Internet space, it was mildly discouraging to hear:

Ryssdal: If you walk around here in this huge bullpen that's around, where all the Idealab employees work, there aren't a whole lot of people, I gather, working on e-commerce anymore.

Gross: A very small percentage of our effort goes toward e-commerce. I would say we are working on Internet companies still. But straight e-commerce companies... there just isn't enough margin and it isn't enough protectable, competitive advantage.

On the other hand, even though I’ve seen our solar efforts in progress for the past year, hearing these thoughts still piques my interest:

Ryssdal: Make me smart here. What is the cost differential between a kilowatt hour, or I guess a kilowatt of solar verses coal powered energy?

Gross: Well right now you can buy electricity from the power company for probably about 13 cents a kilowatt hour on average around the Unites States. And solar energy costs about twice that. So maybe 26 cents a kilowatt hour. And there are rebates and subsidies in some places that bring it down to almost parody, but not quite. We would like to bring it down to the same price that you would pay for the power company, but with no subsidies. That's a very tall order but if we could do that, that would allow many, many people to choose solar over their power company, over coal produced electricity without paying any penalty. A few people will pay a penalty. A few, passionate people would be willing to pay more, but the only way you're going to get mass conversion and effect the whole globe is if you make it cheaper. And that's what we're focusing on doing at Energy Innovations.

I didn’t realize Kai was such a tough interviewer, especially with CEOs:

Ryssdal: Did you get greedy during the dot-com boom? Not in the monetary sense, right? Because everybody was making money and there was plenty of money to be made, but in the entrepreneurial sense.

Gross: I would say we got greedy in the sense that we thought we could make companies at an unbelievable rate. And we probably thought before, maybe a taste of humility, that everything we touch would turn to gold. And it was great to be corrected on that because it led us to be much smarter.

Ryssdal: There's a great quote actually, about this company from somebody who is fairly highly placed at the time and still is, and she said . . . the market wanted crap and so we gave them crap.

Gross: I don't know that was a quote from us but . . . I think the market wanted speed to market and the market was rewarding companies that could launch very quickly and we were very good at that. So we did a lot of that. And the market wanted page views and the market wanted eyeballs and everything the market rewarded, we learned very, very well how to make. But we learned that long-term fundamental value was the only thing that was ever going to hold up. And we learned and shifted our company to only focus on that.

Anyway, here’s the transcript of the full interview, and here’s where you can download the podcast of the (abbreviated) show on iTunes.

--cdb

Borders Plans The Death Of The CD

From Silicon Alley Insider:

Borders Group (BGP) is showing off the first of 14 new concept stores it will open this month. One concept it's ditching: CD sales. The music section has been "downsized", and replaced with a digital kiosk center that sounds great and is almost certain to fail. See if you can see why:

The circular, oversized kiosk features several computer stations where customers can burn music CDs, download music and audiobooks onto MP3 players, create digital photo albums, learn how to self-publish and research family genealogy. Staffers will be on hand to assist.

"We wanted to create a comfortable, easy to understand environment," said Rob Gruen, executive vice president of merchandising and marketing.

The only glitch so far: The digital services don't work with Apple's iPod, something Borders says it's working on.

Interesting concept. I can't see myself buying a CD from Borders, but if there were an iTunes download center (I suppose Borders wouldn't allow Amazon instead of iTunes) inside Borders, where I could buy individual tracks and walk out with a burned CD, I would go for that.

-- cdb

Lepubricans

If you are a Red Stater, who would you rather see on the Democratic ticket this fall? My guess is that you’d rather see Hillary. In my opinion, she is more beatable than Obama because she is more polarizing, whereas Obama is a more hopeful and moderate personality who will win over independents and dissatisfied Republicans more easily.

 

If Hillary and McCain were to win their respective nominations and the final vote were held today, then I would cross party lines to vote for McCain. I tend to agree with his beliefs more, and furthermore, I think it can be healthier for America when Congress and the Oval Office are not held by the same political party. I want to see discussions and compromise, not the kind of battering ram tactics that were used to push through initiatives from 2000-2006. Those tactics were not even efficient as the Republicans did not hold a filibuster-beating majority in Congress, so all they accomplished was to antagonize and offend Democrats. McCain seems to be the kind of guy who would work well with the other side of the aisle in Congress. For that matter, so do Obama and Hillary, but I still say that of the two, Hillary would be more vulnerable against McCain.

Subway Design

Just noticed something this morning about the Gold Line train this morning. The tracks drop down about halfway below the freeway it parallels. Looking out the window, I'm at eye level with the nearest cars. In fact, it feels like we're in a car as well, just another vehicle on the highway. LA being such a car culture place, I imagine this was done by design, so here's some recognition for the heretofore unheralded architect or civil engineer who made this clever decision.

--cdb